Glasgow-based financial company Henderson Stone is expanding its investment advice as high-street banks continue to cut operational staff in the investment field.
Sam Henderson, director of the firm, said: "Some of the high street banks are giving up on this area and other firms are focusing almost entirely on high net-worth individuals. We want to talk to everybody to see if there is something we can do for them."
Henderson, who has worked in the industry for 40 years, said the recent changes are among the biggest professional upheavals he has witnessed.
He said: "We have gone from a position when there were between 250,000 to 300,000 advisers with very little regulation of the profession to the current position where there are probably around 25,000."
The changes in the market follow the investment market shake-up set in progress by the FSA's 2006 Retail Distribution Review, which reformed the system under which financial advisers earned commission.
The changes are still in progress, but many individual IFAs have already left the profession, in addition to the high-street bank personnel whose jobs have gone as part of the drastic downsizing following the financial crisis.
Henderson Stone has opted to be what the FSA designates as "restricted multi-tied advisers" on a range of products in savings and investments, the protection market, pensions and trusts, as well investment products like the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, a tax-efficient means of investing in entrepreneurial companies enhanced in last week's Budget.
In 2010, Henderson Stone joined with other investment firms to become a founder shareholder of the Caerus Capital Group. The firm says the tie-up allows them to combine independence with the strength of a bigger group: "the best of both worlds".
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